


A Good Farewell

by katikat



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Death, Episode Related, Gen, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 06:24:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13229889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katikat/pseuds/katikat
Summary: Zoe Kimura wants to see the face of the man who tried to save her. Or, an alternate version of ep 209, same end result, though. Zoe’s POV.  (Unbeta'd)





	A Good Farewell

Zoe Kimura knows she’s going to die. She’s sealed her fate by sealing the door from the inside, by stopping the ship from sinking. She doesn’t want to die, she has her whole life before her, but it came down to her life or her students’ and then it was no choice at all.

So, she’s going to die. All alone in a room that’s slowly filling with freezing cold water, with nothing and no one for company but a faceless voice on her laptop. 

_Faceless…_

“H-hey, Mac?” she calls out softly, her teeth chattering.

“Yeah?” he whispers back in a voice thick with emotions and she realizes that he’s crying, crying for  _her_. Somehow, that makes her feel a tiny little bit warmer.

“Since I’m gon-gonna die here anyway, you think I could-could at least get to s-see you?” she asks, hugging herself tight because the water’s rising and she’s starting to feel really,  _really_ cold.

There’s a small pause, more surprised than hesitant, she thinks, because when he answers her, his voice sounds a little startled by her request. “Of course,” he says and then she hears the distant chatter of a keyboard.

She doesn’t know what she expected. Someone actually famous, hiding behind a false name? Someone terribly disfigured? Someone… well, she really doesn’t know. But when MacGyver’s boss, Ms. Webber, told her rather regretfully that there would be no video feed on  _his_ side of their chat, Zoe thought there had to be a reason for it. 

And apparently there is. Because when his picture finally pops up on the screen of her laptop which is getting progressively damper by the second - hopefully, it’ll hold a little bit longer, she truly doesn’t want to die alone! - she sees a white guy, blond and with the bluest eyes… sitting propped up in a  _hospital_ bed.

Zoe blinks, so shocked that for a moment, she forgets about her own impending doom. “You al-alright?” she asks.

It might seem weird, being concerned for him, considering she’s about to die in the next few minutes, but he’s spent the last twelve hours holding her hand - metaphorically speaking - and guiding her through the obstacle course the ship’s turned into. And all the while, he’s been in a hospital himself!

He takes a long, deep breath, pulling oxygen into his lungs from a nasal tube that’s helping him breathe - so that’s why he sounded so winded from time to time! - and he gives her a pale smile; actually, everything about him looks pale, almost washed out. “Getting there,” he replies.

She picks up her laptop and sets it higher. Soon, she’ll have to start treading water to stay afloat. “What happened to y-you?” she asks.

Focusing on him allows her not to think about her own fate. But she’s also genuinely curious. And worried. Yes, before today, she’s never even heard the name MacGyver, but now she knows him, at least a little. And she really likes him.

“An unfortunate encounter with a nerve gas. Of the  _very_ poisonous kind,” he explains.

She raises her eyebrows. “That s-sounds aw-awful.”

Before he gets to answering her, he bites his lip hard and arches his back, eyes squeezed shut as his whole body turns taut. It only lasts a moment but when it’s over - Zoe’s no medical doctor but that looked a lot like a seizure to her - his hand’s trembling when he wipes his sweat-soaked forehead with the back of it.

“Yeah, wouldn’t recommend it,” he croaks out, grimacing.

“That’s why your b-boss-ss didn’t want me to s-s-see you? ‘Cause of the-the gas-s thing?”

He nods, his bangs falling into his eyes. “Yeah. It was a very hush-hush operation. If any of it ever got out, we would be in a heap of trouble.”

“Don’t worry, I can promise you I won’t tell a living s-soul,” she assures him in a bout of dark humor. She’s starting to float and the ceiling’s getting closer and closer; it won’t be long now.

MacGyver freezes and his face falls. He blinks hard and Zoe can’t help but notice that tears make his eyes look even bluer. In the privacy of her mind, she chides herself: she’s about to  _drown_ and yet, she can’t help but swoon over a pretty guy. 

“I’m sorry, Zoe,” Mac tells her quietly. “I’m sorry I couldn’t find a way to save you. I’m so sorry that it came down to this. I’m–”

“Mac,” she interrupts him, spitting out a gulp of water. “If you w-were here, instead of m-me, I mean, would it have changed  _any-anything_? Would you have done  _anything_ diff-ferently?”

He pauses and stares at her from the screen. Then he shakes his head and admits, “No.”

The steady stream of water pouring through the rift in the hull is pushing her back, away from her laptop now that she has to tread water, but she swims closer, holding onto the edge of the wooden box on which her laptop sits.

“So, it would be yo-you in he-here, drowning, to s-save my kids-s-s instead-d of m-me. The outc-come would be the s-same. Just a diff-frent person… de-dead,” she points out, quite reasonably she thinks, considering the circumstances.

“But not you!” he insists harshly - and has to pause to take a few deep breaths, wheezing.

“My kid-kids, my respon-sibilty, Mac,” she says.

He just stares at her mutely, looking like his heart’s breaking for her. And Zoe… Zoe doesn’t  _want_ to die, she desperately wants to live, she wants to go visit this genius tinker and go for an ice cream with him and–

None of this will ever happen, though. And now she’s crying, too. She feels sad and lonely and terrified out of her mind - but if she could go back, she would do it again, she would seal the hole and save the ship and keep her kids safe all over again.

The ice cold water’s starting to swirl around the laptop, lapping at its edges, and soon, it’ll wash over the keyboard and short it out and then Mac will be gone and Zoe… Zoe will die. And she doesn’t want to go out on a morose note, she wants to be remembered with fondness, with a  _smile_!

So she says in a teasing tone, “Be s-straight with me! This no vid thing, it wasn’t because of s-some top secret miss-mission, was it? You just didn’t want m-me to see you in a night-gown!”

Mac blinks at her, startled, and then he laughs–

And that’s the last she sees and hears of him. 

_A good farewell…_


End file.
